It is not known how much of that cargo came from the massive bulk-buying campaign organized and carried out across Canada by affiliates of the United Front Work Department, the overseas propaganda and influence-peddling arm of the Chinese Communist Party.

Terry Glavin comments on the 56 million respirators and masks reportedly shipped to China in the first week of the Wuhan shutdown...Read More

“The company is thrilled to see Sophie recognized for her hard work on the project over the last few years,” said Commerce president Chris Grove. “We are committed to advancing the Ashram project in an environmentally responsible manner and Sophie’s work will help build this foundation through high-quality data-gathering and analysis in a very important field.”

Backed by a $300,000 grant, Costis works in partnership with le Centre Eau Terre Environnement of l’Institut national de la recherche scientifique of l’Université du Québec. Expected to conclude late next year, her project provides further insight on tailings management in the flotation process plant.

Her findings so far show no serious concerns with Ashram’s flotation tailings management, show the process has no acid-generating potential and also show strong indications that there is no metal-leaching potential, Commerce stated.

In early October, Cynthia Kierscht, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, hosted Shawn Tupper, associate deputy minister of Natural Resources Canada, at the first critical minerals working group meeting in Washington. The group will continue talks in coming months to finalize the joint plan.—Canadian Press

The work complements Ashram’s pre-feasibility studies for Ashram, which coincide with heightened concerns about critical minerals like fluorspar and especially rare earths. This week Canadian Press reported Ottawa is examining the role Canada could play in supplying the United States and other allied countries with minerals considered necessary to the economy, technology and defence.

Fluorspar wasn’t considered in the project’s 2012 resource but will be included in an update anticipated for the coming year, as will two seasons of extensive drilling. A major advantage of Ashram is the carbonatite-hosted deposit’s relatively simple monazite, bastnasite and xenotime mineralogy that’s familiar to conventional rare earths processing.

Last month Commerce closed the final tranche of a private placement totalling $2.51 million. A private placement in August brought in $413,749.

Update: An academic paper on Ashram’s flowsheet will be presented at the Canadian Mineral Processors conference in Ottawa on January 23. Lead author Jean-François Boulanger, an assistant professor at l’Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue in Rouyn-Noranda and manager of the Ashram metallurgical tests completed at l’Université Laval from 2018 to 2019, will discuss his study entitled Challenges of Scale-Up in Grinding and Flotation of Rare Earth Minerals. The report will also be published in the organization’s periodical CMP Proceedings.

“The Ashram deposit, with its simple rare earth and gangue mineralogy, and resultant well-understood processing techniques, potentially presents a base case scenario for some issues and, therefore, the test data generated by Laval has been used to formulate cautionary guidance for scale-up and large-scale concentrate production, potentially applicable to all rare earth projects regardless of mineralogy,” stated an announcement from Commerce.

Second and third authors of the study are Claude Bazin, professor and project supervisor at Laval, and Darren Smith, project manager at Ashram.